G'morning George, 

 MM> still befuddled enough 12 years later to happily pay more per
 MM> litre of water than for they do now for a litre of petrol...
 GP> What water is this?  & how much?

Its ordinary H2O, costs up to $5 a litre (depending on how many 
strange homeopathic claims can be crowded onto the label),  
whereas unleaded 91 petrol is currently above $1.50 a litre and 
attracting militant protest from both consumer and manufacturer 
quarters alike.

 MM> what awful crime sentenced NZ to its
 MM> current 12-year spell of aimless drifting.

 GP> Possibly daring to make the world THINK they stood up to the USA re:
 GP> nukes in harbour?

Te-he...  I witnessed the Miracle of the Protestors;  I counted 42 
small craft trying to halt USS Blackbridge in the channel outside 
my windows here ... and then their transformation into first 
hundreds (on radio) and then thousands (on TV news) within the 
hour - as I counted 51 buzzing around her as she turned into the 
inner harbour...

 GP> (when we know that the USA won the real battle, in that nukes are
 GP> parked in NZ harbours any damb time the yanks feel like it!)

Have to be a sub, cos' I haven't sighted a US Navy vessel for the 
thirty years since...

 GP> Every two-bit terrorist-wannabe group has a Stinger or three, why
 GP> doesn't NZ buy one or two?
                       
My very dear sir ... a Stinger ? They're so very dangerous !  Once 
the Royal Commission approved the Defence Committee's decision to 
rubber stamp the Civil Emergency Controller's whim to allow a real 
Stinger to be launched against a living target,  there'd have to 
be a statutary period of grace of a week or two to enable the 
hapless pilot to appeal ...  we wouldn't want any real injustice 
done,  not in NZ !!!

Besides which,  it only took 18 minutes to evacuate the whole of 
the Sky Tower to make sure everybody was `safe'  -  and should its 
400 metres actually topple across central Auckland City, well,  
most people have 359 chances out of 360 of not being crushed so 
why buy Stingers that might devastate whole suburbs ?

 MM> Send us some real democracy !!

 GP> It's in saddlebags on a unicorn being ridden by a beautiful virgin
 GP> 20-year-old woman!

And, please, at which end of the rainbow should I wait for them ?

:-)
 
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